Over the weekend I attended a local event call the The Festival of Trees.  This event was amazing and included some of the most unbelievable Christmas trees I have ever seen.  Below I have written a review/report on the festival and of course I have included a ton of pictures along with my very own top 25 trees.  That might seem like a lot but when I left the event I had taken over 138 pictures and I could have taken a picture of each of the 800 trees there.  I have sourced the main festivals site for info along with info gathered while attending. Enjoy!!

The Festival of Trees was inspired 37 years ago by a group of 15 women from along the Wasatch Front, Utah. These women were challenged by Lewis M. Jones, Chairman of Primary Children’s Medical Center Men Endowment Board, to identify a way to raise funds for the hospital.

The Festival of Trees was inspired when Co-chair Ruth Flint vacationed in Hawaii and attended a Christmas boutique featuring small, decorated Christmas trees, centerpieces, and Christmas decorations. They expanded their concept to include full-sized decorated Christmas trees, a gift boutique, and a sweet shop.

That first year, there were approximately 60 trees for display and sale and to everyone’s surprise and delight, $47,000 was raised! This year they have over 800 trees and will most likely raise over 1.5 million dollars. Along with all the trees, there are gift boutiques featuring handmade articles, a sweet shop filled with freshly made candies and baked goods, displays of wreaths and door decorations, centerpieces, gingerbread houses, and backyard playhouses. There is also Santa, activities for children, hot scones and sweet rolls, which you can smell the whole time you are there, and continuous live entertainment. In all, the Festival spans over 220,000 square feet of display space.

The greatest phenomenon of all is that everything is donated. The trees are decorated and purchased by individuals, families, organizations, businesses, and church groups. In addition, others generously donate items to fill the shops and items around the trees. Thousands of people join efforts by contributing countless hours and means to give “A Gift of Love” to children in need.

They say that over the years, Festival of Trees has been copied many times throughout the United States and Canada. However, the Salt Lake City Festival of Trees remains the “granddaddy” of them all.

Over all, my experience was great, and I would recommend that anyone attend this event and soak in the holiday spirit.

Below I have listed Bloggled’s favorite trees.  We didn’t rate the tress but the first one you see is the coolest tree we saw.  If the pictures load slow we apologize, we wanted you to see the detail that goes into these tress.

Glass Tree

Gadget Tree Video

Here are the rest of Bloggled’s picks

Tags: Christmas Trees, festival of trees

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Hoilday Season, Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.